Aside from Aruto's general incompetence, there's a massive problem with everything since the "competition" arc:

The battles literally don't matter

We have already established that Metal Rising Hopper can beat Thouser from the very first encounter. Aruto coulda killed him, or taken his driver, or captured him, basically anything. Yet he . . . doesn't

As a result, every encounter ends with the two of them walking away with no significant, lasting injuries, and in the meantime,. . .

Gai took over Hiden technology. At every turn in the business world Gai has successfully taken Aruto's lunch, largely because Aruto is complete inepty as a tactician.

Last episode, Fuwa beat Yaiba, Aruto beat Gai in the fight . . . and Gai still took over Hiden Intelligence because he "won" the competition and "won" the vote over the Humagear city. In both cases, Gai played dirty and Aruto caught him, but couldn't do jack shit about it.

In this episode, it was JIN that rescued the humagear backup data, and then Arutoa STUPIDLY revealed he was holding them in a fuckin vest so that Gai knew where they were

Then, Aruto couldn't transform until YAIBA saved him by creating a new company to make him president again. really, what exactly does Aruto do to make him the hero we should care about?

He screams and shouts and declares how much he loves humagear but he makes stupid decisions and lets Gai own him all along the way

Even Fuwa has been more effective than Aruto, and his character more likeable

You do realize that if the script is written very intelligently and tightly, a lot of KR series in theory wouldn't make sense then yes?

My thoughts on this one ended up being surprisingly scattered, so even though I was hoping to do a nice big writeup like last week, it's back to bullet points for now:

- My overall thoughts, as much as I can condense them, still go first though. I liked the episode a lot! Everything leading up to Aruto becoming Zero-One again, I thought was extremely well done. Violently jerking the show forward into a new era with an implied timeskip, I think that was a smart move for a show so many of us have been feeling was getting stale. The characters are all in different positions, some radically altered, and catching back up with everyone was great. The scenes with Aruto and Jin were some of the best raw drama this show has had in ages. Truly excellent character-building.

- That being said, as satisfied as I am with how Jin is moving here, I have a few issues with that. One, if he ends up a straight ally who's come to accept Aruto's views by the end of the series, he's just going to be Parad 2.0, and I don't want that. Two, establishing him as being willing to use his new mind-control powers when he first came back doesn't jive the best with his stated belief in the liberty of HumaGears, and unlike in the first part of the show, it doesn't seem deliberately written to be hypocritical. More like it's just something we're supposed to forget about. Third, and this is the big one, they could've just had Jin come back after the competition. Or at least right at the end. I said if the show didn't give me a reason MetsubouJinrai had to be back in the middle of the previous arc by the time it was over, I'd be upset, and upset I am. They didn't contribute anything to those few episodes in-between their return and right now. They didn't disrupt the last two rounds, they didn't mess with Fuwa any more than Gai could've. Heck, none of Jin's new merchandise is even out yet, so not even that angle makes sense! Having Jin's new motivations already mostly laid out was definitely to this episode's benefit, but once again, it's the amount of space between point A and point B that's more the problem.

- I was way into that climax right up until the most poorly timed commercial break I've seen in a while. I don't know who decided to edit it that way, but if you put the CM in the middle of a scene like that, you're supposed to only show Zero-One survived the explosion after. As it is, the way it's put together, with the audio and everything... I don't know, it felt way less impactful than I was hoping for.

- I'm sure at this point it's karma for picking Zi-O Trinity as best suit design of 2019, but the use of Rising Hopper here ultimately felt more cruel than anything. Metal Cluster Hopper has been the only form Aruto has been using forever now. Just let him kick around Thouser and his goons in his base form! Nobody takes Gai seriously anymore anyway! I feel like there was a sort of symbolism, with Aruto and the show both going "back to basics" in a way, after the big competition arc, and that gets muddled by having him use the form that debuted IN that arc.

- I also miss Shooting Wolf, but that's secondary. Uh, no pun intended. Just, in general, I really wish this show got some more use out of its many forms. Takahashi is still writing this like Ex-Aid, where every Rider only had a few forms, that were all direct upgrades to one another, but Zero-One had this excellent, really well-rounded set of base forms that just... totally got the shaft by a dozen episodes in, and I'm so sad about that. I get that it's hard to get the permits to film bike scenes now, you know? I don't complain about Zero-One only riding the Rise Hopper twice. But I don't see what's stopping the show from having fight scenes where Aruto has to make creative use of a wide range of powers, instead of just hitting things with whatever his latest "STRONGEST FORM EVARRRR!!!1!!!1!!" is. Minus some more points for having Metal Cluster Hopper do the swarm thing again, muddling that symbolism too. All they had to do was have the grasshoppers for the Rider Kick fly out of the sword instead of the armor!

- Despite the underwhelming writing going into a lot of the action, I do think the fight choreography in the climax was notably above even Zero-One's impressive average. Action directors still aren't a thing I'm very familiar with, but whoever handled this episode did a great job. Very kinetic. Very cool.

- I like the irony of Yua finally being back with AIMS just in time for Fuwa to leave, because he hates being a tool.

- On which note: Yua, are you seriously letting Gai make you work the camera for his YouTube videos, now? How demeaning can this line of work get? It's bad enough he took your ShotRiser and Key away for reasons I'm not entirely clear on. Somebody needs to take a lesson from Ultraman Taiga!

Now that we're at Ep30 and I can see the treatment of jin and Horobi since jin returned, I'm sure the series will end up "meh". I don't see any real new development between Ep30 and 50. It will just be Thouser, Aruto+Fuwa+Yua and MJ.net just roaming around plot dragged.

It's frustrating because they put effort in the visual department and the forms are all so cool looking. The start was promising, but the plot can almost be written on a stamp and is stretched so much that it feels nothing is really happening...

I’m actually thinking the same thing. I mean they dragged an arc that was in the end completely worthless since all of it could have been wrapped up in 6 episodes, but then we got this timeskip with Gai well established and reacting like the generic Shocker villain that wants to get rid of a tool that is compromising the security of his «* World Domination*» plan.

If Gai getting kicked was so easy, then, why did they decide to put him as a main Antagonist?
This Gai is literally the worst Gai I know...

Unless they wrap the stuff with Gai rapidly ( 2 to 3 episodes) I don’t see Zero-One evolving much.

I hope to be proven wrong.

Have I become so spoilt by Ex-aid and Build that my demands on the new series aren’t met?

Aside from Aruto's general incompetence, there's a massive problem with everything since the "competition" arc:

The battles literally don't matter

We have already established that Metal Rising Hopper can beat Thouser from the very first encounter. Aruto coulda killed him, or taken his driver, or captured him, basically anything. Yet he . . . doesn't

Because Gai isn’t a criminal. He’s a respected CEO while Aruto is the guy who’s slowly dragging the goodwill his grandfather built up through the mud. If he captured or killed him, then Aruto would be the one to go to jail while Gai would either win the competition by default or be commemorated. And if Aruto did take his Driver, then Gai could still have him arrested for stealing, since the belt is legally HIS property.

Quote:

Gai took over Hiden technology. At every turn in the business world Gai has successfully taken Aruto's lunch, largely because Aruto is complete inepty as a tactician.

Last episode, Fuwa beat Yaiba, Aruto beat Gai in the fight . . . and Gai still took over Hiden Intelligence because he "won" the competition and "won" the vote over the Humagear city. In both cases, Gai played dirty and Aruto caught him, but couldn't do jack shit about it.

Aruto has no physical, undeniable evidence. Any case he could bring up would be thrown out by any reasonable court.

It's not like Aruto can use Izu's recordings as partial evidence anymore towards Gai doing shady stuff, given Gai can be like "Hey remember that Rapper Humagear that had false recordings and went berserk? Do you all really trust camera's on Humagears?"

And then back to square one, I can only assume the start of this arc is going to be Aruto working to regain the good will of everyone while we finally form a team against Gai and then Gai's hubris bites him in the ass because there was something he didn't expect happening.

I say that last part since I believe televi-kun scans did mention we'd find out who the endgame villain is in May. And given how Thouser has no real advantage due to his plot armor being taken away... yeah he hopefully won't be lasting as the main antagonist.

Loved everything on first viewing. In hindsight, I too am wishing Aruto just got through that entire fight using Rising Hopper. I would have had him finish off Thouser by using the Metal Cluster Hopper key in the Attach Calibur to form that big drill, and then use a good ol' Rising Impact to smash into Thouser along with it. Ah well, what we got was still pretty great.